Tell W3C: We don't want the Hollyweb. Stop DRM in HTML5

on: 2013-04-25

Join us in calling on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its member organisations to reject the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal (EME). This proposal aims at incorporating support for Digital Restriction Management (DRM) into HTML and would therefore exclude Free Software browsers from being compatible with many web pages.

FSFE, FSF and other prominent organisations
defending digital freedom have prepared a joint letter to the World Wide Web Consortium and its member organisations, urging them to reject the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) proposal.

The signatories recognise the need for the W3C to respond to the changing landscape of the Web and to reconcile the interests of multiple parties. But ratifying EME would be an abdication of responsibility; it would harm interoperability, enshrine nonfree software in W3C standards and perpetuate oppressive business models. It would fly in the face of the principles that the W3C cites as key to its mission and it would cause an array of serious problems for the billions of people who use the Web.

Since Digital Restrictions Management requires denying users their right to modify the plug-ins and other relevant programs, it is by nature incompatible with free "as in freedom" software. Because of this, browser plug-ins designed to play media under the EME specification would all be proprietary, and widespread adoption of this plug-in system would pressure more and more Web users to sacrifice their computing freedom in order to view media. Enshrining nonfree software in HTML itself would comparatively diminish the values of freedom, self-actualisation and decentralisation so critical to the Web as we know it.

Take action to defend a free internet and keep DRM out of W3C Standards and join FSFE by signing FSF's petition We don't want the Hollyweb.